No one online seems to want to talk at all. People in my age seem to lose the ability to talk.
What happens if we all forget how to have a deep or entertaining conversations?
Strangers, or do you mean your friends?
My friends talk about a pretty big variety of stuff
talk about what? like big meaningful stuff? pretty much nobody talks about that because it’s scary and painful, and people mostly talk to loved ones about it. it’s also considered anti-social behavior.
most public discussion is limited to very banal topics because it’s least likely to offend or upset anyone. it’s safe, it’s congenial, it’s friendly.
Identity politics takes over. (As in what you’re saying has already happened to a large degree)
I see a lot of kids talk on the train. It’s weird, in the UK, everyone is on their phone, while in Germany people talk, get to know new people, play games, and quiz people as to why they want to get off at this particular station.
I usually feel like I have nothing useful to contribute, that my takes are uninteresting and unoriginal, and that no none cares what I think. I start a comment and delete before sending bc… what’s the point?
I’m interested in other people’s personal experiences, even if they’re mundane. Everyone approaches situations slightly differently and learning about that is entertaining to me.
The thing I dislike is when people parrot whatever shit they read on the internet or some academic theory without any first hand experience to back it up.
This is a long way of saying… there are people out there that will enjoy hearing what you have to say.
I was in Japan two weeks ago, and saw first hand what happens when no one wants to talk. So…
How are you?
What do you think is the worst thing that happened to you in the last week?
What is the best thing that happened to you on the last week?
People don’t talk any more because they have stopped listening.
They just want to tell their opinion and don’t care about what opinion others have or even consider their angles
i mean, it’s hard to consider their angles when they are insulting you, or demeaning someone else.
It’s not meant to be easy! It’s actually best when it’s challenging and thought provoking
Any criticism, or insult or demeaning action I get, I try to swallow my pride and check if it’s justified. It sometimes is! If it’s not, I let it slide and try to keep on.
That said, tone and respect is important but not always reciprocal and at some point it may be best to not pursue a meaningful discussion
In my experience though, this is rarely the case!
100% this, and so efficiently said. It would have taken me paragraphs to arrive at that same conclusion! Well done!
What kind of deep conversations do you want? You want drug “deep” conversations, or you want “here’s why everything is fucked” deep?
Have you tried engaging people in conversation?
Can’t expect to jump into a deep conversation off the bat like “what are your thoughts on the socio-economic implications of the death of the 3rd place and how we could restore it?”
You gotta start with small talk. Helps introduce both parties to each other and feel out if you’re someone they want to talk to. You can get into deeper conversations naturally if you’re not weird about it.
Far too often, “deep talk” online devolves into an ideological slugfest. What has become rare is Listening and Empathizing. Asking a question that illustrates a certain perspective becomes a debate point and then a bitter disagreement. It’s civility that’s in decline. IMO.
those things require reciprocity.
and that’s the rub, everyone wants it but nobody is willing to give it freely.
Online, absolutely in decline
Learn to enjoy the silence.
All i ever wanted, all i ever needed is here. In my arms.
Words are very unnecessary. They can only do harm.
This week a bird flew into a room I was in, a small one. Ok, they are actually called blue tit, but don’t let that distract, it’s a nice little bird. Anyway, it couldn’t find its way out, so I had to catch it in my hands. I was afraid I was going to hurt it by mistake, because it was trying to break free from my grip, but I managed to carry it back to the open window and it flew away (seemingly) happy. It’s the second time this happens, so I started searching online for the correct way to carry a small bird that doesn’t want to be carried. I did not find this information, but on a page about pet birds, I found this paragraph: “Spend quality time with your bird in a calm and positive manner. Offer treats, engage in gentle play, and use soft, soothing voices to build trust.” I am not a bird of course, but you know what, that doesn’t sound too bad! I want that. I showed it to my girlfriend and she gave me a look. We’ve been arguing a lot lately because she’s been emotionally distant and sort of spiraling out of control. I just wish I had a life like that “how to treat your bird” description but mutual. Do you know what I mean?
I sympathize with wanting to feel comfortable and connected with a partner. I hope you can find an arrangement that makes you happy.
I also totally know the feeling of finding little passages or pieces of art or media that I really emotionally resonate with and struggling to communicate what they mean to me. I’m not surprised, things like that are so strongly influenced by your own context, but I still find it disappointing.
Yes! I know that feeling. David Foster Wallace wrote in one of his novels, I forget which, something like “how strange that I can have all this inside me, and to you it’s just words”. When you find something that emotionally resonate with you, art or poetry or anything, do you think that the meaning is what the artist intended, that there’s a 1:1 connection with what the artist felt, or is it more that the art allows us to put meaning into it? Like a more sophisticated and guided Rorschach test?
it’s not strange. it’s that your external world and your interior world don’t have much in common at all and less in common with the world inside of other people.
all my girlfriends were obsessed with Taylor Swift. They thought I was some robot asshole for not being ‘taken’ with her music… which i found to be trite pop culture crap of zero value… basically auditory Doritos. but i went along to get along. then if i played music i liked, it was deeply weird and offensive to them and was further evidence of what a freak I was. Same with books, movies, pretty much everything else.
what is meaningful to you is horrific to someone else at worst, and at best it’s meaningless. I don’t care for sports, and that alienates me from most of my family and huge swathes of the population for whom sports is the single most important thing in their lives.
I like that people like different things, even if I can’t see what they see in it. Nobody should be made to feel like a freak for liking something, or being interested in something.
You hold one hand on either side of the bird, fingers pointing to the ground, and very gently cusp them around it.
When you have a hold on it, turn your hands upwards, so the bird “lies on its back”.
That makes birds go quiet for some reason.Oh! Thanks :) I’m trying to imagine this in the situation when they are flapping their wings trying to get out through a closed window. The next time it happens I’ll try to get it so it lies on its back.
I’d like to see a blue tit
lol tit
*gestures vaguely around*
Find the readers. Postman was right. It will only get worse.
I feel like deeper conversations are still to be had with the people who understand you most, even if you’re not the closest with them IRL or online. That said, it doesn’t happen for me as much as I’d like it to for a number of circumstances.
That said, is it just me, or is everyone we see in daily life looking like they aged 10 years in the last few? People in the grocery store checkout, office workplace, manufacturing floor, next door, whatever human interaction capacity. Are we all aging like crazy from sheer lack of certainty in anything anymore?
Or like, is our planet’s 420ppm carbon dioxide level (which if I’m doing my mental math correctly is a 30% increase in atmospheric CO2 from just 1980ish) actually really fucking terrible for humans and we are dying as a species in real time, right before our eyes???
Fuck me.
I mean we’re fersure getting dumber.
Also this might actually be a decent deep conversation starter. (I guess we should keep trying to compensate for the CO2 dumbness somehow.)
we’re not getting dumber, the dumber people are just louder and much more confident (except americans maybe, purposeful lack of investment into their public education system means they probably are getting dumber)
yeah, that and simplified stupid things resonate with more people. soundbytes by idiots are louder and go further than expert essays by academics, which nobody reads.
Nobody IRL even wants to talk either. Everyone staring at their phones lol
It only takes a few highly motivated individuals to start posting open ended conversations with great headlines to get everyone fired up again. I wouldn’t despair over it.
Talk to real people in real life.
